As some of you already know, I am the biggest Apple FanGirl on the face of planet Earth, but after a recent Apple Store horror story, my faith in Apple, its service and its commitment to their customers has been entirely shaken. Let me tell you the story of how a routine service appointment turned into a nightmare that has still not ended.
On Saturday March 2nd, I woke up, turned on my Macbook Pro and discovered that my battery had a “Service Soon” type of alert indicating that I needed to bring my Macbook Pro into a store and have it looked at. My husband had been dealing with a similar issue with his battery for nearly a year in which his Macbook Pro was actually telling him to have the battery repaired because it had gone through so many charge cycles that it was down something like 50%. I am not as cavalier about my Macbook Pro and I take Apple service warnings seriously, so that morning when he woke up, I laid out a plan for us to visit our nearest Apple Retail Location in Willow Grove Park, PA and have both our batteries replaced at once. We knew the repair was about $130 each and we were completely okay with paying it since we understand that batteries need to be replaced from time to time and that it had been over three years since we had purchased our Macbook Pro’s and that seemed like a reasonable life expectancy for the battery.
So, we made our Genius Bar appointments, arrived on time and were seen relatively quickly. The Apple Genius that serviced us ran some diagnostics and as expected my husband’s battery was in need of immediate repair, although my battery was teetering on the line between green meaning “good” and red meaning “replace,” so that I did not have to have my battery replaced if I didn’t want to. I asked the Genius if I would get six more months out of my current battery, but he did not think so, so I happily handed over my computer for the fifteen minute battery replacement service thinking it was better to have it replaced now than to come back another day in another few months.
In a matter of a half hour the Genius came back with both our Macbooks (having spent 15 minutes on each of our laptops) and then I handed over my credit card to pay. Once I was done, I took my Macbook Pro to put it back in its protective travel sleeve and immediately noticed a very large L shaped scratch on the cover of my computer. Franticly, I began wiping at the cover of my machine hoping and praying that this was just a line of dirty and not what I feared. Another Genius nearby saw my efforts and in an effort to reduce my panic, went to get some cleaning solution and a micro fiber to help me remove the dirt. “It’s probably just dirt,” he replied calmly. But then after giving the cover a good cleaning he expressed an audible “SHIT” and then quickly left to fetch my Genius.
“Did you hear him,” my husband asked, “he just said shit, that is a scratch not some dirt.”
I had heard him fine.
“That was not there when I gave this to them,” I replied to my husband while rubbing my fingers over the scratch. “Here, feel this,” I motioned, “it’s not even a normal scratch, its jagged, you can feel it.”
The Genius who had done our battery repair was ushered over by the other who had gone to fetch him. Immediately, he went into defensive mode.
“Alexis, your computer was dirty when it came in,” he explained.
“Yes, it was dirty, actually it was smudged because I had quickly grabbed my Macbook and put it into its sleeve right after doing my makeup and it wasn’t dirt so much as it was makeup, but this case was not scratched when it came in,” I explained, having him too feel the jagged portion of the scratch that so obviously was a new marking.
The Genius then excused himself and came back a few moments later.
“I’m very sorry,” I explained, “but as you can see from the rest of this machine, it was kept in pristine condition. In nearly four years, this machine has received no other damage or scratches, I take care of my things.” I then began to give him a once over of my machine showing him that there was not one other mark on the aluminum casing to give any indication that this was caused by me. “I am OCD about my stuff,” I said, now shaking out of horror that my device was permanently scarred and there was nothing that could be done. “What can be done, nothing, there is not even anything you can do about it,” I expressed, honestly thinking that this problem had no solution.
“Well,” the Genius began “I just spoke to my manager about it and there is something we can do. I can replace the display at no cost to you.”
“And that will fix this scratch?” I asked.
“Yes, I would need to remove the display and replace it with a new one, but that would fix it,” he explained.
Nervous to have to leave my Macbook Pro for another few hours, I agreed to let them replace the display, upset, but glad that they owned their mistake and were willing to make it right.
My husband and I then went home an returned a few hours later to pick up the machine. I then made sure to thank both the manager and the Genius for helping make this right for me and proceeded to coddle my Macbook Pro the entire way home.
Once we got home, however, it was clear that this was only the beginning of my problems. As soon as we got home and settled, I turned on the computer and tried to connect to the internet. My wifi indicator, however, was not connecting with my home wifi network like usual. I clicked on the empty ‘baseball diamond’ symbol and saw a message that said “Wifi: No wireless device connected.”
Panic struck me immediately. I then did a quick restart hoping that it just needed a minute to calm down and recognize that my wireless card was there after the repair. Upon restart and giving the machine a little time to think, it still didn’t pick up my home wifi and it was obvious that something had gone wrong during the repair. My husband did a quick google search and discovered that the wireless card connects through the display and that during the replacement something must have caused my wireless card to disconnect. We looked at the clock, it was only moments until the store closed so we called the store and asked to speak to our Genius. When he answered and we explained what was going on, he seemed to understand immediately. “Do you live close by” he asked. I replied that we lived nearly thirty minutes away. Disappointed by my answer he then directed me to come back to the store at 11am when they opened and he would see me immediately. “You can drop off the computer, and go and grab a Starbucks and when you get back you should be good to go,” he explained. So, I agreed to meet him in the morning, hung up the phone and proceeded to cry myself to sleep. This would happen to me of all people.
When I woke up in the morning, however, I was confronted with more than just a problem with the wifi card. My husband explained to me that after I had gone to sleep, he noticed that the fan on my Macbook Pro was going crazy and when he went to evaluate my computer it was overheating. Nothing had been running on the computer, it had just been sitting there dormant. On top of that, he explained that he tried to shut down the computer, but when he selected the shutdown option, it only restarted the computer. I asked if he had perhaps hit restart by accident, but he explained that he had the same thought and tried again, only to find that the computer restarted again. My panic level rose even more significantly.
So, I left my house and arrived a little before 11am at the store. They seated me at the Genius bar any my Genius from the previous day came out to greet me. I asked that before he started anything, I wanted him to get a manager because I needed to tell them some additional issues and I wanted a manager present for it. I then explained to them both what had occurred the previous night, but the Genius quickly dismissed my fears “I could see how you would think the two are related, but the restarting issue is a software issue and I didn’t touch your software, just your hardware,” he explained. I proceeded to explain my theory that by touching one thing and causing an issue, it then chain reacted into something bigger. My theory was dismissed despite Apple’s own assertion that what sets its computers apart from all others is the integration of the hardware and the software. I was not impressed with this Genius to say the least.
But, he did proceed to give me an explanation for my issue. He thought it was a permissions issue and pointed to the fact that I had applications on my computer that I had obviously downloaded and had even changed some icons around. “These things would cause permission issues,” he explained, “but, I assure you, this was in issue building up over time, not something that just happened.” So, he proceeded to run a diagnostic to repair my permissions. He of course found a few errors in my permissions and proceeded to have them fixed. “Now, the computer should be able to shutdown properly,” he explained. So he proceeded to shutdown the computer, only to find that it simply restarted again. “Okay, well, sometimes it can take a few minutes for the permission repairs to take affect, so in the meantime, let me get started on that air card issue,” he said. Before I left I asked him what the worse case scenario was on the restart issue and he explained that we would simply need to reinstall my OS Software, which he would help me to do, but that I should probably back up first. So, he took my Macbook to the back and I called my husband and asked that he come and bring me my backup hard drives because this issue was getting slightly more complicated but the Genius was sure he could fix it.
I waited about an hour for the Genius to come back out and in the meantime, my husband arrived with my hard drives and a manager came out to tell me the Genius would be out in a moment to talk to me. That was a great sign!
When the Genius returned with his iPad in hand I could see that something bigger had gone wrong as his iPad was opened up to a page with information on replacement internal parts with large dollar amounts for cost. “Okay, so it looks like what happened was that when I replaced your display, the connection from the display to the logic board was compromised,” he started. I then pointed to the image and the price point next to it and gave a concerned face. He continued “obviously, since this happened in our care, you will not be charged for this repair, but since you have an older model Macbook Pro, we do not stock these items and they take a little bit to come in so we have two options. I can order the part and fix it in store for you or, what will be quicker, we can take your computer and ship it to the depot center and they can replace it.”
I explained that I wasn’t sure I was comfortable sending my computer away and that I would prefer for them to bring in the part and fix it locally. The Genius agreed to this until his manager swooped in and explained that they could not do the repair locally and that my only option would be for them to ship it. It then became clear to me, whether she intended to express this or not, that she did not want this Genius working on my computer anymore after he had already cost them at least $1,000 in replacement costs on my computer already. I say at least $1,000 because the cost of the display repair was about $375, then I saw that the logic board cost $425 and the labor cost was about $300 for the logic board repair.
The next action steps at this point were to get my Macbook Pro backed up because they could not guarantee that they wouldn’t wipe my computer at the depot. So, again my Genius helped get my Time Machine backup set up, which lead to yet another problem. My external hard drive was randomly ejecting itself during the backup process. We figured out that this was due to the fact that my USB ports were both suddenly very wobbly. “Let me go get you another USB chord,” my Genius said.
“No, its not the chord, its the port, its loose now, it wasn’t like this before,” I explained frustrated.
“It had to have been like that, I didn’t touch your ports,” the Genius explained.
“Where do those ports connect to,” my husband asked.
“Those ports connect directly to the logic board,” the Genius responded.
“Isn’t that the part you broke and we are now having to replace” I exclaimed.
The Genius had no words for this.
So, we continued to proceed with the backup, diligently making sure that we did not let that USB chord budge at all. We sat and waited for nearly three hours as my Macbook backed up, visited once by our Genius who kept an eye on us and offered us an alternative half way through the backup. “There is another option if this is taking too long,” he explained. “You can bring this home and do the backup there and then bring the computer back.” This was not any sort of solution and we explained that we would rather sit and wait here than drive home and back again.
Once the backup completed it was 4:30 pm and I had been at the store since 11 am dealing with this issue. Other Genius bar customers had even commented that I was the “winner” because I was there longer than they were. Once I explained that I was there, not for my own fault, but because the Genius had broke my computer, their faces turned from playful to sympathetic. Oh yes! I was the winner! I got to waste my Sunday at the Genius bar because a routine service turned into a nightmare. Once we had handed over my computer to the Genius for what we hope was the last time, my husband and I asked to speak to a manager on duty. The same manager that had informed us that the computer would have to be sent to the depot arrived. A handed her the bill from my battery replacement and calmly explained that after everything that I had gone through, I thought it was only right that they refund me for the original issue that had initiated this whole debacle. To make a long story short, she completely refused to give us anything, asserting that we were already getting a new display, logic board, etc out of the whole deal. Of course, we explained our position back that that was only to fix what they had broken, but it did not even begin to address the heartache and headache that we had been experiencing for the last 24+ hours as no fault of our own. To be completely honest, my Macbook Pro had not had one single issue in the 3 years and 9 months that I had owned it. I never had to take it for repair, not one single time. I had kept that machine in perfect working order and in perfect physical condition. My display was perfect, my logic board was fully functional and I have no reason to believe that it wouldn’t have continued to remain in that state had I not brought my computer in for that service. The truth of the matter was, I trusted Apple and the concept of the Genius system that if I needed to have my computer worked on, it had to be by a Genius, and although I fully acknowledge that my situation was not what happens 99.9% of the time, I was the .1% and it was a horrible experience. Apple owed me something for being a loyal customer for the past eight years and countless devices if they wanted to keep me their #1 FanGirl.
The worst part about this whole experience was, for me, that at no point during my time at the Apple Store did anyone, a Manager or the Genius who caused my issue, apologize for my situation. They only “claimed ownership” of the issue, but never said they were sorry. Look, I know the way Apple operates, and I know full well that they would not have paid for the repairs so easily if they didn’t know they were at fault. So, instead of kicking me out of your store in tears, maybe you should have owned up to your mistake and at least apologized and explain that they would not be able to commit to a refund but that perhaps they would try to bring this to the attention of someone who could approve for me to get something for the issue they caused. In the end, I ended up calling the AppleCare hotline because it was the only other thing the manager said I could do. When I called them, they were the ones who were apologetic and sympathetic to my issue. My customer service agent admitted that she had heard about issues where a Genius messed up something or another and that it happens, they are human, but she had never heard of a debacle like mine before in which so many things went wrong. In the end, she was able to call the store, and “petition” the manager to refund my battery. She explained that it is up to the discretion of the manager to refund my money, but that she would escalate the issue and act as an advocate for my experience. When she called me back after reaching the store and speaking to the exact manager who denied me the refund earlier, she explained that they had agreed to refund my original service.
It became clear to me at that point that something was very broken at Apple and with the Retail experience. I had to call a hotline with a faceless representative in order to get any resolution to my issue. The numerous Apple employees, Genius’ and Managers who had seen me at their store struggling for the past two days were not able to give me any sort of apology or any token to express that I had a bad experience in their store. They had been there with me, watching me cry, just standing there doing nothing to help a customer who was in a bad situation because of their own negligence, all because the Apple Retail experience would not allow them to refund me or give me anything for the trouble they had put me through because Apple notoriously does not discount or allow a zero dollar transaction to take place. There is no place for a manager of a store to step in and rectify a wrong perpetrated against a customer and that is horrible.
So that is my story for now. As of writing this, it is Monday morning and I should not expect my Macbook Pro back to me until Friday. Thanks to the customer service representative at the Apple Care hotline, I will not have to make another trip out to the Apple Store to pick up my computer, as they are going to have it shipped directly to me at home because I do not want to step foot in that store again.
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